I'm wondering if there are some graphical libraries I need to download to bring the game playing performance of the 701 back up to the framerates I enjoyed under XandrOS.

The reason I refer to "game playing performance" is because I'm not entirely sure if it is OpenGL or some other graphical library. Despite my hardware not changing, every game I play has significantly worse framerate - 3D games are now unplayable, 2D games have lessened performance. This is tested with both native linux games and WINE accessed games.

Under default XandrOS this was not a problem, and even switching away from my LCD panel onto the 701's screen, it is still a poor comparison to what it was. It hasn't bothered me too much since games are obviously an added bonus on the 701's hardware, not an essential app, and I like Eeebuntu enough not to want to change it just for the sake of game playing. I just don't see how the change could be so drastic.

Does the Base install miss something that I need to download through Synaptic?

Does the fact that XandrOS only had i810.ko for the intel driver, and Eeebuntu has i810.ko, i830.ko, and i915.ko under the DRM subfolder (dynamically allocating RAM?) have any bearing? Are they conflicting do you think. I have updated to the latest release of all these file and I stll have the same issue.

Also, I have tested games on the normal unmodified clock speed, for those who know that I run the CPU at 765MHz to have the FSB freq. required to feed 1680x1050 resolution. Still the same issue.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

When I was worrying about that, some guy told me to run games with the "-opengl" key. He said that it helped on his 901. I dunno, but on MY 901 it didn't do anything. But you could still try. Anyway, after digging the net, I've found out that there is no such thing as a normal INTEL graphics driver for Linux(at least that's what most people are trying to say). The only cards that have relatively good performance(compared to Windows) are the Nvidia cards, cuz their programmers write drivers for Linux.

A lot of people will claim that LXDE and XFCE desktop environments are lighter, and much much faster than Gnome. I agree, too. Try installing LXDE through apt-get, then boot into lxde instead of gnome when you log in.

That hasn't worked, thanks for the suggestion though.




Seriously!? Gnome is that 'hoggish' when it comes to graphical rendering? CPU and system RAM don't seem to be drastically different from under XandrOS, maybe it's using more graphical resources.

I may give LXDE a try, thanks. Also, what makes you recommend it over XFCE?

Ya it is.
Search for LXDE and look at posts from stanjam.

Why do I recommend lxde over xfce ?? If the object is to go with lightweight, lxde would be on top. XFCE, however, does not have the gnome dependencies like lxde has.

Well I installed LXDE, and whilst it is very impressive in its own right, it hasn't made the slightest bit of difference to the rendering performance during gameplay.

Gnome and LXDE are snappy by themselves, yet native linux and wine games crawl to an unplayable pace. Again, this wouldn't normally be such an issue, but the performance under XandrOS was so much better - I just don't like it as an OS.

I even tried removing non-used drivers from the modules folder just in case there were conflicts. No difference. Removing the drm.ko file in case the memory was being incorrectly assigned - no difference.

Although I said games were an optional extra in my first post, I'm now relying on the eee 701 as a programming machine for a small game that I'm prototyping. Under XandrOS my test level would load up and run at 220+ FPS. Now the same level, under Eeebuntu, runs at 33 FPS.

Any other ideas? Are the drivers substantially different from the XandrOS ones? I really like Eeebuntu, but I will need to program at least this one game, and possibly other graphically intensive apps in the future.

Any further help appreciated.

Well, despite saying that I would stick to eeebuntu with the anomalous graphical performance, I really need to program on this machine. Regarding the above-mentioned framerate issue, I can't keep using eeebuntu without this behaviour being resolved.

I didn't want to go back to XandrOS, and so I have made the leap to Mandriva 2009. Everything works out-of-the-box, and this whole framerate issue has now disappeared

Maybe someone else might have this problem with eeebuntu, in which case they will at least know they aren't alone.

Thanks for the attempted help guys.

I have this same problem with my eeepc 900. If I remember right when I installed Eeebuntu games worked fast for some time, but then something happened. I usually (try) to play Zsnes Super Nintendo emulator. As I try graphic mode that isn't using opengl it's quite playable, but with opengl it's very slow. Also as I tries World of Goo demo for Linux frame rate was like 1 fps, while is runs very smooth on Windows (I have dualboot with Win XP).

Hopefully someone could help us.

Well I have a 701SD 8Gb 512Mb and on Eeebuntu (8.10) I got consistent 59fps in games that required OpenGL now that I have upgraded to 9.04 I get 10-15fps to me it seems there is a driver issue with this operating system I have enabled all the repositories that I can find and still nothing and it still runs bad. As it happens I am now reinstalling Eeebuntu 8.10 and I will ignore the upgrade messages.

Yep, don't upgrade to 9.04. Wait until they release eeebuntu 3.0.

heh. It's like we need a big disclaimer NOT to upgrade to jaunty until eeebuntu 3.0 comes out.

I had a similar problem but I have Compiz installed which almost certainly contributes to the problem. However, whenever I want to use a more graphics intensive application I switch to the Metacity window manager easily using Compiz Fusion Icon in my system tray. Makes OpenGL games like Aleph One work infinitely better than under Compiz.

Not sure if it's the same though as you are using Base, which doesn't come with Compiz if I remember rightly?